In The News

India's Pharma Ache

Yogi Aggarwal November 4, 2004
By mastering the process of reverse engineering, the Indian pharmaceutical industry has successfully produced generic drugs at low prices – crucial for providing affordable treatment to those in need. The government's impending adoption of Trips (Trade Related Intellectual Property in Services), a WTO measure, may significantly hamper the industry's success. If the Indian parliament...

Trading in Pieties

October 22, 2004
A new European Commission proposal will give poor countries special access to EU markets if they agree to sign the Kyoto global warming protocol and other international environment and labor treaties. But manipulation of trade privileges is often thinly veiled protectionism, argues the Financial Times in this editorial. If trade negotiations do not focus on opening markets, the adoption of these...

French NGOs Push to Save African Chicken Farmers from Europe

October 18, 2004
According to a French non-governmental organization, the developed European poultry industry sells cheap produce to African countries, undercutting domestic markets. Industry leaders within Europe claim that African nations have the option of creating import taxes, and that cheap produce is a boon to countries with weak purchasing power. The French group, however, says that imposing tariffs is...

Tom Yam Swamp

Arindam Mukherjee October 12, 2004
When the India-Thailand Free Trade Agreement (FTA) came into effect in September, Indian businesses suddenly found a much cheaper manufacturing option. From electronics to textiles, products can be produced in Thailand and re-imported to the Indian consumer market at more competitive prices. India's domestic industries, threatened by this outsourcing loophole, question whether such...

Freeing India's Textile Industry

Asutosh Padhi October 5, 2004
When the Arrangement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) expires on January 1, 2005, the international textile industry will be entering a free-for-all phase. The ATC’s quota restrictions on textile exports have so far safeguarded poor countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia, and its abolition leaves them to the mercy of the free global market. India, with its copious human and natural resources,...

The Price of Free Trade - Part II

Tom Fawthrop October 1, 2004
Instituted some 30 years ago, the international Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA) set export quotas on all textile manufacturing nations. Some poorer countries, like Bangladesh and Cambodia, received larger quotas, which enabled them to attract foreign investment and sharply boost their earnings. Artificially protected from competition, they built their developing economies around the textiles...

Pity the Giants

Kesa Nimrahong September 30, 2004
Despite strong international sanctions against the illegal trade, ivory products still flourish in Thailand, where ivory carving is a traditional art. Thailand finds itself at the epicenter of an international black market, ushering in large shipments of African ivory each year. Materials are smuggled through a complicated trail that sometimes passes through ports as far flung as Saudi Arabia and...